cooking challenge week fourteen: yasai katsu curry

Katsu curry is a relatively new tradition in Japan, but is very popular. It's a Japanese take on an American/Indian curry sauce. The difference is that it is, bizarrely enough, sweetened with apple and banana, while the spice comes from Indian madras curry powder. So strange but really nice.

You will need:

For the curry sauce:

2 ripe bananas, sliced

1 small onion
3 cloves garlic

3 cox apples, peeled and diced

1 tablespoon ketchup

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon ground turmeric

2 tablespoons madras (hot) curry powder

2 tablespoons butter

4 cups water

2 cups vegie/chicken stock

3 tablespoons cornflour

For the vegetables:

1 egg

1/2 cup flour

1 cup PANKO breadcrumbs

Oil for deep frying

Vegetables

What to do:

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and fry off the finely diced onion, garlic, apple and banana. Stir constantly for two minutes, until softened. Add 3 cups of water, the ketchup, honey, turmeric and curry powder. Stir well. Simmer for ten minutes then add stock. Stir 3 tablespoons of cornflour into the remaining cup of water. Add this to the curry and simmer for 30 minutes until thickened and reduced.

Strain through a colander to remove solids and return to the saucepan. Continue to simmer and thicken until ready to serve.

For the vegetables:

Slice eggplant and sweet potato into 1cm thick rounds. Dip them in flour, then egg wash, then PANKO breadcrumbs. Deep fry. Once they float to the top, they are ready (the PANKO breadcrumbs will darken once you remove them from the oil).

Serve with steamed rice and some green salad (I used Japanese pickled cabbage and cucumber).